1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to disk drives capable of being configured into a plurality of data storage zones, wherein some of the zones have different performance characteristics compared to other zones, and methods to perform such zoning configuration.
2. Related Art
Disk drives are widely used in personal computers and other electronic devices for the storage of data. A disk drive typically comprises of one or more disks for the storage of data, one or more heads to read or write the data, and a controller for controlling the movement of the heads. Each disk is divided into sectors, and the sectors can be accessed using an addressing system such as CHS (cylinder-head-sector) or LBA (Logic Block Addressing). In a LBA disk drive, the physical address of each sector is mapped to a logical address.
Typically, disk drives are designed for computer applications where the integrity of the stored data is critical. If a disk drive encounters an error during a read or write operation, the disk drive performs a set of error recovery routines to recover the data. The performance of error recovery can take up to 30 seconds, during which the disk drive is not responsive to commands from the host device. When the disk drive is used in a personal computer, data integrity may be of the utmost importance, and the host device (e.g., the personal computer) may wait for the disk drive to complete its recovery operation.
Disk drives are also becoming increasing popular in other electronic devices, such as digital video recorders (DVR), set-top boxes, digital music players, and the like. In these applications, the data integrity is not as important as the data throughput rate. For example, in a DVR application, an error due to the reading of one block of data may only affect portions of one video frame, which is not noticeable to the end user when viewing the AudioNideo (A/V) data stream at a high frame rate such as 30 frames-per-second (fps). However, since the disk drive is primarily designed for maximum data-integrity protection, the disk drive still undergoes the error-recovery routines whenever it encounters an error, rendering the disk-drive inaccessible for a period of time. In a DVR application, this causes the A/V data stream to be disrupted for up to 30 seconds, during which the end user may see a frozen video screen or a blue screen. During the performance of the error recovery routines, the host device (such as the DVR) cannot do anything to interrupt the disk drive except to power off and back on the disk drive; and such a power reset can still take approximately 10-15 seconds. If the DVR is outputting a video, the video display can be interrupted for 10-30 seconds when the disk drive encounters an error. If the DVR is recording a video, approximately 10-30 seconds of the A/V data stream will be lost.
In addition, some DVR devices are capable of displaying and recording multiple A/V data streams simultaneously. For example, if a DVR is recording 3 A/V data streams and displaying 2 A/V data streams, whenever the disk drive encounters an error with one data stream, all 5 A/V data streams are affected for the 10-30 second period.
Furthermore, home electronic devices, such as DVRs, set-top boxes, digital music recorders, and the like, are typically placed in locations where the ambient temperature is relatively high, and are more prone to vibrations and movements. These factors increase the likelihood of read and write errors for disk drives, which could cause frequent interruptions to the operation of the host device.
Typically, host devices (such as DVRs) also use the disk drive to store critical files, such as firmware, system files, configuration settings, and the like. For these files, the reading and writing of data are not time sensitive, but the data integrity is critical. Therefore, if a disk drive is designed with only the data throughput rate in mind without performing error recovery routines when an error is encountered, the host device could potentially crash or freeze when encountering an error during the reading or writing of critical system files. A write error ignored by the disk drive when writing a critical system file could potentially cause irrecoverable damages to the host device.
In light of the above mentioned problems, there is a need for a disk drive with multiple zones having different performance characteristic for zones used to stored different types of data, with some zones optimized for maximum data throughput rate, and some zones optimized for maximum data integrity protection. Furthermore, it is preferable that the zones be configurable as to their storage capacity and read or write performance characteristics, such that the host device manufacturer or the end user can customize each zone in accordance with the storage and performance needs of the host device.